{"id":274,"date":"2012-10-09T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T12:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/?p=274"},"modified":"2024-08-05T09:14:39","modified_gmt":"2024-08-05T09:14:39","slug":"mekong-villages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/?p=274","title":{"rendered":"Mekong villages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South of Luang Phabang scattered on the river&#8217;s banks villages hide amid trees and bushes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ban Nong Bua Kham is a new settlement, in fact three villages put together. The government made the villagers move down to the river to stop encroachment on the forest. It paid for the removal, it installed electricity, a dirt road connects the village with the outside world. But the people can\u2019t support themselves here. Fishing can\u2019t sustain them, the teak wood grown around the village doesn\u2019t belong to them. And so they keep commuting to their old fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some have disassembled and reassembled their old wooden houses, some could afford new cement blocks and corrugated iron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/girl-on-road.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-46\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Nong Bua&nbsp; Kham village doesn\u2019t look authentic. Yet its people don\u2019t seem part of this more modern world either. The old still weave bamboo baskets. Rice is still being threshed with a foot-powered pestle and mortar. To the children that foreigner is a strange sight. Some laugh and follow him, though at a safe distance. Some shy away and start crying. And some come to see what\u2019s up first, then after all decide it\u2019s better to start crying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"95\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/old-lady.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-95\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"96\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/old-man.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-96\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Had Keo village has Had Keo temple where an old monk serves. In every other aspect too it is the typical traditional ethnic Lao village. Houses on stilts, palm trees, ducks and turkeys, people sitting in the shade. Clean and tidy. In all its simplicity it isn\u2019t poor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"110\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/tempel-Had-Keo.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-110\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"29\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/boys-Had-Keo.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-29\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The village of Pak Hao sits, its name literally says so, at the mouth of the Hao. Its white waters splash and crash down between giant boulders. But they are swallowed up by the Mekong, slow and brown here, and in no time no trace is left of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there is the village with the boy under the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"27\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/boy-under-tree-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" data-id=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/boy-under-tree-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-28\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South of Luang Phabang scattered on the river&#8217;s banks villages hide amid trees and bushes. Ban Nong Bua Kham is a new settlement, in fact three villages put together. The government made the villagers move down to the river to stop encroachment on the forest. It paid for the removal, it installed electricity, a dirt &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/?p=274\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Mekong villages&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,156],"tags":[42,12,43],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-laos-english","category-mekong-english","tag-laos","tag-mekong","tag-mekong-villages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pieterblog.rdeman.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}